Obsidian General Discussion Thread

[Infinitron]

Yep, I remember that interview. He spelled it all out there.

We would love to make a Fallout: New Vegas-style game or something like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, or The Witcher; we’d love to make a game like that. But if we can’t own the IP, we will make it Eternity-style

Eg, Tyranny.

 

[Abu Antar]

I came to think of something. When I saw the Biomutant character creation, my mind directly thought of what Tim Cain has said about geometric stuff.

 

[Nano]

I wonder if they hired any decent new writers for the secret project.

 

[Latelistener]

Chris Parker was brought in as lead producer/game director and Chris Avellone (another owner) as lead designer.

I assume Chris Avellone replaced Brian Mitsoda, and Chris Parker replaced... ?

 

[Fairfax]

Chris Parker was brought in as lead producer/game director and Chris Avellone (another owner) as lead designer.

I assume Chris Avellone replaced Brian Mitsoda, and Chris Parker replaced... ?

No, that's the fun part. Alpha Protocol simply didn't have a Project Lead or a Lead Designer until they came along.

 

[Roguey]

Chris Parker was brought in as lead producer/game director and Chris Avellone (another owner) as lead designer.

I assume Chris Avellone replaced Brian Mitsoda, and Chris Parker replaced... ?

Avellone replaced both Mitsoda and Raymond Holmes

https://www.linkedin.com/in/raygor
Lead Designer
Obsidian Entertainment
August 2006 – January 2008 (1 year 6 months)Orange County, California Area
Lead Designer on Alpha Protocol 3rd person Spy/Action/RPG
Managed team of thirteen designers, including full task scheduling; hired designers and joined interviews for company-wide open positions; worked closely with Owners and Publisher to craft, maintain and communicate game vision.

Gotta be harsh here but "fired for incompetence" was the likely reason for his dismissal.

 

[Nano]

I believe I read a Josh post somewhere where he said Obsidian didn't have "project directors" until around 2007-2008 when that became his role on Aliens.

 

[Fairfax]

Chris Parker was brought in as lead producer/game director and Chris Avellone (another owner) as lead designer.

I assume Chris Avellone replaced Brian Mitsoda, and Chris Parker replaced... ?

Avellone replaced both Mitsoda and Raymond Holmes

https://www.linkedin.com/in/raygor
Lead Designer
Obsidian Entertainment
August 2006 – January 2008 (1 year 6 months)Orange County, California Area
Lead Designer on Alpha Protocol 3rd person Spy/Action/RPG
Managed team of thirteen designers, including full task scheduling; hired designers and joined interviews for company-wide open positions; worked closely with Owners and Publisher to craft, maintain and communicate game vision.

Gotta be harsh here but "fired for incompetence" was the likely reason for his dismissal.

I always assumed this meant the game didn't have a Lead Designer:

It didn’t have a Project Lead or a Lead Designer for a chunk of its early inception and production, and then at the two year mark, Chris Parker became Project Director and I volunteered to become Lead Designer on it in the absence of a Lead Designer.

I guess it's possible the absence of a Lead Designer was due to that guy being fired.

 

[Latelistener]

Avellone replaced both

 

[Flou]

I wonder if they hired any decent new writers for the secret project.

Umm... Boyarsky?

 

[Nano]

I wonder if they hired any decent new writers for the secret project.

Umm... Boyarsky?

Would he really be counted? From my understanding, among the five writers on Bloodlines, he did the least work. Did he have much involvement on the writing side on Arcanum?

 

[Roguey]

Did he have much involvement on the writing side on Arcanum?

He said he wrote half of it http://web.archive.org/web/20030311....ign.com:80/features/profiles/lboyarsky.shtml

In my spare time I design/write dialog/script for about half the game, as well as doing character portraits and animation.

 

[Quillon]

Did he have much involvement on the writing side on Arcanum?

He said he wrote half of it http://web.archive.org/web/20030311....ign.com:80/features/profiles/lboyarsky.shtml

In my spare time I design/write dialog/script for about half the game, as well as doing character portraits and animation.

And in his working hours he does the other half? :D

 

[Infinitron]

Keep your eyes peeled for any Obsidian writers on LinkedIn who you know who aren't working on PoE2.

 

[Rev]

Yes. It's a new Obsidian-owned IP.

How do you it's gonna be an Obsidian-owned IP? If it's financed by a publisher as it seems, the IP could fall in the hands of said publisher.

Sources.

Oh come on, if you knew something about the project you would've already leaked some info about it by now.

 

[Flou]

I wonder if they hired any decent new writers for the secret project.

Umm... Boyarsky?

Would he really be counted? From my understanding, among the five writers on Bloodlines, he did the least work. Did he have much involvement on the writing side on Arcanum?

Well, he did write for Bloodlines and Diablo 3. As a Creative Lead and probably in this case as a world builder/designer he will influence a lot when it comes to writing even if his own word count won't be that large. Same goes Tim Cain on this project obviously if it's really Cain & Boyarsky doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to building the new IP.
It's hard to say for sure since we don't know who from Obsidian's normal narrative design team is involved. Obviously they are quite busy with Deadfire and Tyranny DLCs

 

[Flou]

Keep your eyes peeled for any Obsidian writers on LinkedIn who you know who aren't working on PoE2.

Are there any who aren't working on Deadfire?

Kirsch, Patel, Starks and that new junior writer they added are all working on Deadfire. Constant Gaw and Matt MacLean are busy with Tyranny DLC #2. Matthew Perez who worked on Tyranny is doing Area design on Deadfire.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Why do I get the feeling this will be something cool and familiar like Fallout at the base but with a zany layer of dumb shit on top to make it different, basically looking like Horizon Zero Dawn / LawBreakers.

How's this a problem, exactly? Fallout also took something cool and familiar like post-apo, and added a zany layer of dark humor and pop culture references to make it different.

 

[Infinitron]

Kirsch, Patel, Starks and that new junior writer they added are all working on Deadfire. Constant Gaw and Matt MacLean are busy with Tyranny DLC #2. Matthew Perez who worked on Tyranny is doing Area design on Deadfire.

Strange assumption to make that there's going to be a Tyranny DLC #2

 

[TT1]

Last time I checked, Obsidian begged Activision either to let them license or outright buy Arcanum and was told no to both.

No, what I mean is that describing something as "it will be enjoyed by Fallout fans" doesn't mean it'll be post-apocalyptic.

Well, Troika was working on a post-apocalyptic game. This is something that Fallout fans would like, I think...



We know this game is not Star Wars or Vampire, so this is a good guess...

I just dont get the UE4. They dont need it.

 

[Flou]

Kirsch, Patel, Starks and that new junior writer they added are all working on Deadfire. Constant Gaw and Matt MacLean are busy with Tyranny DLC #2. Matthew Perez who worked on Tyranny is doing Area design on Deadfire.

Strange assumption to make that there's going to be a Tyranny DLC #2

Even stranger to assume there won't be one. They added 3 quests for companions, leaving 3 for the 2nd DLC. Knowing Paradox they are more than likely to have a 2nd DLC for the game.

 

[Roguey]

I just dont get the UE4. They dont need it.

Better that than Unity.

Some Skyrim-ish game with Unity? Absolutely not.

 

[Sulimo]

Kirsch, Patel, Starks and that new junior writer they added are all working on Deadfire. Constant Gaw and Matt MacLean are busy with Tyranny DLC #2. Matthew Perez who worked on Tyranny is doing Area design on Deadfire.

Strange assumption to make that there's going to be a Tyranny DLC #2

Even stranger to assume there won't be one. They added 3 quests for companions, leaving 3 for the 2nd DLC. Knowing Paradox they are more than likely to have a 2nd DLC for the game.

I'm still waiting for the historical disfavored outfits DLC myself. Everybody knows the Disfavored had a greater variety of sprite costumes than there are currently ingame.

 

[TT1]

Kirsch, Patel, Starks and that new junior writer they added are all working on Deadfire. Constant Gaw and Matt MacLean are busy with Tyranny DLC #2. Matthew Perez who worked on Tyranny is doing Area design on Deadfire.

Strange assumption to make that there's going to be a Tyranny DLC #2

I also think there will be a DLC #2. In fact the CEO of Paradox said something like this:

“I think that, hopefully, it will take off a bit more in the long-term sales. We'll see, if we get a couple of expansions out, if that changes anything.”

https://www.pcgamesn.com/tyranny/tyranny-sales-paradox-obsidian

 

[Nano]

I just dont get the UE4. They dont need it.

Why? If they're working on an AAA game and they're not going for the inhouse route with the engine, then Unreal is the best option.